So do you think this is fair?

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I'm currently in my OB/Peds rotation. In Peds- since there's only so much space at the local children's hospital for students, we get sent out to see different things. Home health, School nurse, daycare observation.

Well, today I was supposed to go on my home health observation. I did what I was supposed to- called the nurse Monday morning (left a voicmail at 8am). Heard nothing from her. Left several more voicemails. Talked to another student- who said that this nurse calls kind of late (it was after 7pm) and to just wait. Well- I should have gone with my gut and callled the office. Because that's the next step if you hear nothing.

I had heard nothing from her- so I called the home health office this morning. Turns out that this woman has called out sick for the week, and they have nobody else for me to go with. So no clinical. This nurse is going to love how many voicemails I left LOL.

And- they said they called my teacher (but they didn't tell me who she was) but got no answer. So I sent an email off to my teacher and told her what happened, and that they tried to call her. She said that she was in the office until 4:30 yesterday and got no such call. SIGH. Love the lack of communication.

She was apologetic. And she said I could switch next week, and not do school nurse, and try home health again if they had space for me (which they did). This way too, there's someone in my class who hasn't been able to see anything outside of the hospital, so that person's going to take my school nurse slot.

We have 15 hours of clinical that we can miss this semester. And now they're taking the 6.5 that I missed today out of that :uhoh3: Kind of annoys me since it wasn't my fault that today got canceled. I missed 5 last week, but that was b/c I was sick, showing symptoms and I was supposed to be on a pediatric hemology/oncology floor. I'm sorry but I'm not potentially exposing some child with a compromised immune system to my germs if I don't have to. So I'm still within the hours I can miss without having to make up anything (though I think I'd be annoyed if I had to make up the time too).

I understand the whole point of you need "X" amount of clinical hours in order to graduate. So maybe that's why they're taking them from the banked hours. And- when I think about it, if you take a day off from work- even if it's not your fault (like my dh's had to do b/c I've had school stuff going on, and I've had a kid that needed something) they get charged vacation days.

I don't even think it's worth arguing the staff about. We're the last RN program anyhow- they're switching it over to a BSN program in August, so the rules are going to change anyhow.

Just my minor annoyance with nursing school for the day :lol2:

Cheryl

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

It is likely they have no choice. The state decides how many clinical hours you have to have, not the school I believe. Sorry that happened.

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It's not worth arguing about. As you note, absences in the real world count whether or not it's your "fault" -- you still didn't put in the mandated clinical time.

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I agree, it's not worth the arguement. "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!" I think it's easy to get caught up in the 'day to day' grind of being a nursing student. If we step back and look at the bigger picture, we can clearly see that the nursing school 'experiences' (both good and bad) will only enhance our nursing skills, thus careers!

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

Nursing school has taught me you need to be flexible. We have to make up ANY clinical time Lab/Seminar or clinicals we miss. If we don't we don't pass. You are allowed to miss up to X amount of days of clinical depending on the semester but can not move on until it's made up.

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Roll with it. You will be required to be flexible as a nurse, so learn how to do that without complaint in school. It'll all be worth it. just take what they give you and be grateful. good luck.

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I'm currently in my OB/Peds rotation. In Peds- since there's only so much space at the local children's hospital for students, we get sent out to see different things. Home health, School nurse, daycare observation.

Well, today I was supposed to go on my home health observation. I did what I was supposed to- called the nurse Monday morning (left a voicmail at 8am). Heard nothing from her. Left several more voicemails. Talked to another student- who said that this nurse calls kind of late (it was after 7pm) and to just wait. Well- I should have gone with my gut and callled the office. Because that's the next step if you hear nothing.

I had heard nothing from her- so I called the home health office this morning. Turns out that this woman has called out sick for the week, and they have nobody else for me to go with. So no clinical. This nurse is going to love how many voicemails I left LOL.

And- they said they called my teacher (but they didn't tell me who she was) but got no answer. So I sent an email off to my teacher and told her what happened, and that they tried to call her. She said that she was in the office until 4:30 yesterday and got no such call. SIGH. Love the lack of communication.

She was apologetic. And she said I could switch next week, and not do school nurse, and try home health again if they had space for me (which they did). This way too, there's someone in my class who hasn't been able to see anything outside of the hospital, so that person's going to take my school nurse slot.

We have 15 hours of clinical that we can miss this semester. And now they're taking the 6.5 that I missed today out of that :uhoh3: Kind of annoys me since it wasn't my fault that today got canceled. I missed 5 last week, but that was b/c I was sick, showing symptoms and I was supposed to be on a pediatric hemology/oncology floor. I'm sorry but I'm not potentially exposing some child with a compromised immune system to my germs if I don't have to. So I'm still within the hours I can miss without having to make up anything (though I think I'd be annoyed if I had to make up the time too).

I understand the whole point of you need "X" amount of clinical hours in order to graduate. So maybe that's why they're taking them from the banked hours. And- when I think about it, if you take a day off from work- even if it's not your fault (like my dh's had to do b/c I've had school stuff going on, and I've had a kid that needed something) they get charged vacation days.

I don't even think it's worth arguing the staff about. We're the last RN program anyhow- they're switching it over to a BSN program in August, so the rules are going to change anyhow.

Just my minor annoyance with nursing school for the day :lol2:

Cheryl

What do you think would have been a more "fair" way to handle it (keeping in mind that you do need to finish the term with X amount of clinical hours)?

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I had forgotten to post this- but think about this as well.

We had a really nasty snowstorm here in January. At the time, I was on my OB rotation, we did 1 Saturday for 5 weeks, 12 hours. Well, we missed an entire Saturday due to the snow. Then the next Saturday, we got sent home early b/c it was snowing (though I think the director of this program made a foolish desision, the roads were fine about an hour or so afterwards, and by the time we would have been leaving the roads were clear)

But we didn't get penalized for that. Didn't even have to make it up. And that's 18 hours in itself.

I'm over it :lol2:. Had my little temper tantrum. At least I'm not having to make up the time I missed yesterday b/c I had hours still available to miss.

Cheryl

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.
It is likely they have no choice. The state decides how many clinical hours you have to have, not the school I believe. Sorry that happened.

This. It's not the school being strict for no reason...it's the state that says you need X number of clinical hours. It sounds like your school gives you more hours than the state requirement, so if you absolutely have to miss a clinical, you don't have to make it up.

I would consider myself lucky to have a school that does that. In my school, it's the minimum required by the state and if you miss for any reason, you MUST make it up somehow, some way to meet the minimum required hours.

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Oh yeah- I do. Because if you're really sick (and I was last week) and you HAVE to miss, then there's built in hours for it.

Anyhow- this is what I decided. I don't HAVE to make up the hours I missed on Tuesday. But, I was given the option today to go in on Friday (that's just how clinicals in OB/Peds work- there's 3 days/ week we're scheduled but we only go in 2). So that way for the semester I only miss 5 hours instead of 11. And I know- we're allowed to miss up to 18- but maybe it'll look better somewhere that I only missed 5. I also got kind of an interesting (but sad) patient today and we're allowed to take them on Friday as well if we want. AND- Child Life is coming to talk to our group- they do different activities with the kids while they're in the hospital, and I kind of wanted to listen to that as well, and I'd miss it if I had done home health and not gone in on Friday.

So it worked out ok anyhow.

Cheryl

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We aren't allowed to miss any clinical hours for any reason unless we want it to affect our grade. If we miss one day it drops our grade a letter point, and if we miss two grades we are withdrawn from the class immediately. No matter what happens- car crash, family dies, you come in and they decide you're sick and send you home- anything that keeps you from clinical is an absence. I would guess they would do the same thing to us in your situation. Even though it wasn't really your fault you had some control over the situation and could have alerted your instructor sooner about not getting called back. They may have had an opportunity to place you somewhere else.

Anyway- just be glad they let you miss that day at all. :(

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.

I guess you've figured out by now that nursing school is horribly unfair at times (or at least seems horribly unfair) :( Unfortunately, all we can do is roll with it. I'm glad things worked out for you.

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